1994/01/01 by J. C. H. King · 1 citation
Environmental Science · #Archaeology #Art history #Crew #Ethnography #Geography #Geology #George (robot) #History #Oceanography #Polar Research and Ecology #West coast
paper · doi:10.1093/jhc/6.1.35
openalex publication_date 1994/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The voyage of Captain George Vancouver (1791–5), on the Discovery and the , Chatham, was designed to investigate the possibility of a Northwest Passage from the interior of Canada through to the Pacific Coast, and to settle the territorial dispute with Spain concerning what is now Vancouver Island. In three surveying seasons much of the Western and Northwestern Coasts of America, as well as numerous Pacific islands, were mapped out for the first time. The good health of the crew permitted both the surgeon, Archibald Menzies, and surgeon's mate, George Hewett to devote time to the collection of natural history and ethnography. Inventories of both these collections survive, as does one contemporary list, and two nineteenth-century museum listings of collections made by other crew members The five inventories of these collections are here taken together for the first time to provide a preliminary overview of the ethnography from this highly significant voyage.